Walking out of prison in January 26 years after the gates had closed behind him, Bruce Glover knew he was mostly on his own.

"My mother passed while I was gone," says Glover, 56, who returned to his hometown of Detroit after being released from a state prison. He'd been serving time for running a call-girl ring. "I lost it all."

Glover got help with temporary housing and transportation from a statewide program that pools community resources to help those coming back from prison. "It's very important," he says of such efforts, "because I was like the guy lost in another dimension; a stranger in town, not knowing which way to go."

Throughout the USA, inmates released from prison have traditionally been given little more than a few dollars and a ride to the bus station. Often, they don't even have valid state identification cards, further hindering them when they try to find work.

At least 95% of all state prison inmates will eventually be freed, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, prompting communities to reconsider how they deal with hundreds of thousands of inmates released every year from correctional facilities.

"They don't parachute into prison from outer space," says Barry Krisberg, president of the National Council on Crime and Delinquency, a criminal justice research group. "They come from real communities and go back to real communities. Most of what they need to succeed is really not a function of state policies so much as what's available. … Is there a place for you to live? Is there someone willing to give you a job? Is there a faith-based group willing to talk to you when you get stressed?"

Those who commit new crimes or violate parole and are sent back to prison or jail add to the escalating costs that have made corrections among the most expensive services states provide.

A widespread impact

The failure of many ex-inmates to make it on the outside has a far more visceral impact than simply straining budgets, because most return to specific cities and neighborhoods, often overburdening social services, disrupting families and jeopardizing public safety, politicians and crime experts say.

A demonstration project launching next month in New Jersey will provide intensive assistance to a group of ex-inmates and parolees returning to Camden, Trenton and Newark, cities that receive roughly 20% of the state's returning adult ex-inmates, says Ken Zimmerman, chief counsel to Gov. Jon Corzine.

At least 1,500 adult former inmates return to Newark each year, Mayor Cory Booker says. To help them, the city has given temporary jobs to about 65 ex-inmates and offers tax breaks to developers who agree to hire them. Newark also created a legal services program to help those who risk being sent back to prison for minor parole violations such as failing to pay an old parking ticket.

"I think everybody understands there's an absurdity spending more and more money arresting and re-arresting the same people, and if this money was better used, in halfway houses or ex-inmate programs, that you reduce recidivism at a cheaper cost," Booker says.

In addition to lacking valid identification cards, newly freed inmates often "don't have transportation, a résumé," says Russ Marlan, spokesman for the Michigan State Department of Corrections. "It doesn't take a genius to figure out what they're going to do. So we just realized that we can set up a system that can give them a better chance to succeed."

Michigan has increased funding for its Prisoner Re-Entry Initiative to $33 million, enabling it to expand from 15 major metropolitan areas to the entire state by September. In the program's two years, 14% of the 8,000 released inmates who have received help have gone back to prison, a far lower rate than the 48% of former inmates who return to state prison within four years, Marlan says.

Non-profit groups that work with former inmates are glad to see new programs.

"The more the merrier, so long as they're well trained," says Cindy Sneed, chief clinical officer for The Next Door, a Nashville-based organization that has helped more than 380 women, most of whom have been incarcerated, find counseling, housing and job training. "People who are coming out of incarceration need a lot of support or they're going to reoffend."

Mary Lou Leary, executive director of the National Center for Victims of Crime says victims advocates have only recently been invited to participate in planning for re-entry programs. "Victims play only a secondary role in the criminal justice system, and I think it's unfortunate," she says.

Marlan says officials worried that some residents would believe the state was coddling prisoners by focusing on their re-integration into society. "It's just a simple philosophy," he says. "They're coming home, coming back to where we all live. Helping them is helping us."

Job skills essential

One thing is clear to former inmate Albert Sanchez. Without the program that taught him carpentry, he'd probably be back in prison.

When he was released from a California prison in May after serving a two-year sentence for possession of methamphetamine, Sanchez, 38, left with a tool belt and his union dues paid for a year thanks to a carpentry program that teaches skills to inmates and helps them land apprenticeships once they are released. "Pursuing carpentry, I think, was one of the best things to happen to me," Sanchez says. "It keeps you away from everything that you were doing before."

In Detroit, Glover runs two shoeshine booths. "He's been punctual, he's been consistent," says Sammy Mitchell, the booths' owner. "I gave him an opportunity, and he made the most of it."

An opportunity, Glover says, is all he needed. "I stay to myself," he says, "and go to work."

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Bruce Glover, who served 26 years in prison, works for Shoe Redo in his hometown of Detroit.

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